Apple Event April 20

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by John F

Although if the iPad Pro isn't powered down, you could use "Find My".

True. And hopefully if someone misplaces an iPad Pro it just misplaced and not stolen. I think the U1 chip adds pin point accuracy, but I’m not sure what else it adds. At any rate, an iPad Pro is pretty large, so I think it would be easy to locate the old hunt and search method as long as it was misplaced within a radius of hundred feet or so. If you leave it on the cross town bus you are pretty much SOL.

The AirTags are BT and as such they will have a limited range. I'm guessing around 30 meters range. So don't expect to secretly plant one on your child and follow their progress around town. AirTags don't have GPS, only BT.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

Wait, 16 GB of RAM? What possible use case is there for a tablet with 16 GB of RAM?

Photoshop, Lightroom, Affinity Designer or Photo...

[John F]

Originally Posted by OtinG

...

The AirTags are BT and as such they will have a limited range. I'm guessing around 30 meters range. So don't expect to secretly plant one on your child and follow their progress around town. AirTags don't have GPS, only BT.

From Apple:

When youʼve left something far behind, like at the beach or the gym, the Find My network — hundreds of millions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices around the world — helps track down your AirTag. And itʼs designed to protect your privacy every step of the way.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by John F

From Apple:

Yes, but that assumes those phones have BT enabled and are within 30 meters of the AirTag. Plus you can turn off that service, I think. I personally will keep that service turned off since I won’t have any AirTags, and I’m not interested in having my iPhone XR used as a device to find something someone else lost. I’m sure Apple will try to protect your location from other people, but for the system to work they will have to know your location in order to report it to the owner of the AirTag. I know they will try to keep you anonymous, but the system might get hacked at some point. I’m not into being tracked, not even by Apple.

Another reason to be wary is that Apple stated that Android phones can also pick up the AirTag signal and thus be a part of the tracking system.

[John F]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Yes, but that assumes those phones have BT enabled and are within 30 meters of the AirTag. Plus you can turn off that service, I think. I personally will keep that service turned off since I won’t have any AirTags, and I’m not interested in having my iPhone XR used as a device to find something someone else lost. I’m sure Apple will try to protect your location from other people, but for the system to work they will have to know your location in order to report it to the owner of the AirTag. I know they will try to keep you anonymous, but the system might get hacked at some point. I’m not into being tracked, not even by Apple.

I would guess that your personal habits aren't relative. When I'm out and about, I see plenty of people looking at their phones, or Using wireless ear buds.

Personally, I have BT and Find My enabled all the time.

And if you are tracking your kid... iSomethings are ubiquitous enough, at least in the USA, and BT is popular enough, at least with the younger generation, that I would guess you can get a pretty good idea of where they are. I would strongly suspect that many/most kids when out and about, are "connected" somehow (they want messages, or email, or FB, or Instagram, Spotify, or...), be it BT, WiFi, or Cell signal and an AirTag would cross their path often enough.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I keep wishing that Apple would come up with a good remote app for the iPhone. I don't think they will though.

I still want to put together a good media server, but that's going to have to wait until Drobo is producing again, or some other 3rd party raid device that has the same capacity as the Drobo comes out.

there is a remote that runs on the iPhone for apple tv.

Dale

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by OtinG

New iPad Pro with M1 chip with 8 core CPU and 8 core GPU. Added a Thunderbolt port. New liquid retina XDR display with 10,000 mini LEDs on the 12.9” model. Upto 2 terabytes of storage and up to 16GB RAM.

11” starts at $799
12.9” starts at $1099

I’m not well versed in the 2020 Pro models, but the new ones seem to be a significant upgrade.

This might be a great tool for graphic artists, photographers, videographers etc, assuming iPadOS doesn’t limit it too much.

That is about all of the changes. The did change the cameras to that both sides are 12K and a little better color support. The new CPU is supposed to improve performance 50% over the 2020 version.

Dale

[JSWolf]

How compatible is the M1 chip? Will there be apps that won't work?

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

How compatible is the M1 chip? Will there be apps that won't work?

Aren’t the M1 and A series chips both ARM based? If so then it shouldn’t be as bad as M1 taking the place of Intel chips. But there might be some issues for sure. I suspect Apple will have some big updates for iPadOS 15 to add more M1 capability and features for the Pro models. I would think that Apple should want to keep the programming of apps for A series chipped iPads and M1 chipped iPads very similar.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Aren’t the M1 and A series chips both ARM based? If so then it shouldn’t be as bad as M1 taking the place of Intel chips. But there might be some issues for sure. I suspect Apple will have some big updates for iPadOS 15 to add more M1 capability and features for the Pro models. I would think that Apple should want to keep the programming of apps for A series chipped iPads and M1 chipped iPads very similar.

I am thinking of getting a new iPad and if I went with the iPad Pro 12.9, I would not want to find that some of the apps I do really use won't work.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

there is a remote that runs on the iPhone for apple tv.

Dale

Yes, we know. However it is not as convenient as holding a remote, and it is pretty much just a larger version of the ATV remote but with a little better trackpad control. I’ve tried it, but it really much better over all than the ATV remote.

The new remote looks to be much better in functionality and size (hold-ability). At $59 standalone I’m not seeing enough to tempt me to buy it, especially since I would also need to get a neoprene cover for it because Apple thinks remotes need to be small and slippery. Ultimately, the new remote doesn’t add much function other than adding a mute function and the ability to turn on/off the ATV 4K and the TV set with a Power button. It does look like the trackpad will operate better on it, and it adds iPod style wheel control for scrolling.

[tomsem]

I’ll probably get the remote, just for the scrubbing feature, but also being able to turn TV on and off. I don’t think mute would work (it would control TV sound, but we don’t use TV audio, rather a sound system connected to it via optical cable).

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Aren’t the M1 and A series chips both ARM based? If so then it shouldn’t be as bad as M1 taking the place of Intel chips. But there might be some issues for sure. I suspect Apple will have some big updates for iPadOS 15 to add more M1 capability and features for the Pro models. I would think that Apple should want to keep the programming of apps for A series chipped iPads and M1 chipped iPads very similar.

It’s the same instruction set on both. The difference is M1 consolidates what used to be separate components (CPU plus RAM, GPU cores, Neural Engine cores).

Which is why M1 Macs have been able to run many iOS apps for some months. There are not going to be any problems running existing iOS apps.

WWDC should give a better idea of how to take better advantage of M1, either from developer perspective or from iPadOS 15 platform perspective.

One thing I’d like to see for iPadOS 15 (but not tied to M1): user Profiles, like macOS.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I’ll probably get the remote, just for the scrubbing feature, but also being able to turn TV on and off. I don’t think mute would work (it would control TV sound, but we don’t use TV audio, rather a sound system connected to it via optical cable).

The new power button is a nice addition. Most of my streaming devices have had that functionality, including the Fire TV and Roku remotes, so it is about time Apple incorporated it into their new remote.

I probably would have bought the new remote if it had been $29 or less, but $59 is way too much for something I wouldn’t use much. My TV has HDMI-CEC and its remote can and does control all my devices. The ATV remote provides a small amount of functionality that my TV remote doesn’t, but that functionality is rarely needed. So I’ll save the expense and make do with the older ATV remote for those rare times I need those functions.

[tomsem]

With another TV, which supports CEC on the HDMI port, pushing the ‘TV’ button (or whatever it is called) on the Apple remote would wake up the TV as well. But our current TV doesn’t support CEC. I assume the new remote will use IR signal to do this (it will be interesting to see how it figures out the right signal — I think it can get a model identifier from HDMI and map that to the correct code?). Well, it’s going to be mid-May before I have it in hand.